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Polluted soil stays in McPherson

Chris Hunsley
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Apr 04/05) - Truck loads of diesel-soaked soil stockpiled at the Fort McPherson landfill after a power plant fire last winter will remain in that community.

The Town of Inuvik last week rejected the power company's request to dump the contaminated soil in its landfill.

"An invoice has been signed and we will be leaving the soil in Fort McPherson," said Brian Willows, director of corporate operations for the power company.

"Inuvik does have the ability to remediate soil and we have brought some there in the past," he said before explaining that he understood Fort McPherson did not have the capacity to process the soil when the company left it there.

"In fact we brought 30 truck loads of contaminated soil to Inuvik this year."

Authorities from Fort McPherson gave their assurance this week that the material can be remediated on site.

According to Troy Jenkins, Fort McPherson SAO, the 1,100 cubic metres, or 60 truckloads, of polluted dirt was accepted by the community the moment it was dumped in the landfill last spring.

The town's bylaw states very clearly that costs will be incurred at the time of dumping, said Jenkins, explaining that the $65,000 bill, plus interest, has gone unpaid since last year.

"We've just been told by the power corporation that they will pay it now," he said.

In Barb Armstrong's opinion, the soil - and other contaminated materials in the future - should be sent to for Inuvik.

"To my knowledge Inuvik is the only community big enough to have a land farm," the regional contaminants co-ordinator said. Armstrong questioned why Inuvik council didn't approach her on the matter before making its decision.

"I thought it would be a good idea to incur some revenue here," she said of the $72,000 tipping fee, half of which would go to the town.

In land farming, the soil is spread out over a sizeable area and tilled so the hydrocarbons evaporate and don't leech into the soil.